


in flight, he calls my name

by orgiastique



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Actors AU, M/M, Movie AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-11 01:07:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orgiastique/pseuds/orgiastique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They speak words that are not their own, imagine that the walls surrounding them are not collapsible planks, pretend that the love in their heart is real. They don't know themselves well enough to know any better.</p><p>(Or, dumb teenage actors AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. darling, speak to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only one of them is hungover but they're both dumb. Eren's POV.

A shove to the shoulder rudely thrusts Eren into consciousness. The sun blinds his eyes with thick arrows of light, a friendly PSA that it is time to get the fuck up. When he tries to push up onto his elbows, he has to swallow down a small pellet of food-acid to avoid throwing up all over the face next to his, looking equal parts cross and concerned.

"You were hogging the covers," the guy gripes.

It's the face from last night, Eren's mind prompts foggily: wide mouth, tall nose, foxy eyes. The half-dyed hair just north of there is too hipster for Eren's liking, but the naked chest on the southside suits his taste for toned leanness well, so the still alcohol-numb neurons in his head tell him that plus and minus equals mostly plus. The sore ache in his backside snidely remarks on just how much of a plus he must have found this guy last night.

The only missing link is the one between the guy and his name. Churning at the full speed of a Windows 95, Eren's brain generates numerous error messages.

"Uh..." he begins helplessly. His voice sounds like he drank his beer and swallowed the can too.

Thankfully, Mostly Plus doesn't give much time for Eren to voice his non-thoughts. He reaches for a bottle of water on the nightstand and hands it to Eren. "You're looking for this. You had a lot to drink for someone who's not even legal."

Eren frowns into the mouth of the bottle as he presses it to his lips. How does this guy know how old he is? What did Eren's drunk, dumbass self tell him last night? Wait—he probably knows Eren from television or the movies, huh. Is he a fan? Is he going to sell the story to the press after he leaves? While Eren doesn't exactly have grand plans for his coming out because he doesn't give nearly as many fucks about his sexuality as his agency does, this is not the way he imagined it happening.

On the bright side, at least he would no longer have to dodge questions at every turn about whether or not he is dating Mikasa. At the current rate, Eren will probably end up more famous as that guy who may or may not be dating Mikasa Ackerman than for his own work. Dammit, to flop so spectacularly at the audition of a lifetime at a time like th—

When Eren looks up from biting the lip of the plastic bottle, Mostly Plus is staring back in this soft way that makes Eren hold his breath. 

"Don't worry, I'm not big enough of a dickwad to sell you out," Mostly Plus says, as if reading Eren's thoughts.

He is talking about drinking but the inflection of his voice promises to keep a bigger secret than that. Eren nods. He should be feeling relieved by this but his thoughts are elsewhere, inundated with mosaic-like impressions of those eyes under not midday sunlight but in midnight darkness where they formed dark grooves housing the shiny jewels of his pupils. A flash of frustration. A glimmer of interest. A sparkle of something like empathetic understanding—unlikely, Eren is pretty sure they hardly know each other.

A full minute of silence passes, and just when Eren despairs that he will have to bear the responsibility of breaking it despite being incapable of coherent speech, Mostly Plus sighs and grabs the bottle from Eren's hands, taking a good gulp of water himself. He swallows hard and when he speaks, he's staring past Eren. 

"Look, I don't know if last night—or, er, much earlier this morning, I guess—was just a destressing exercise or if you do this all this time or if you expected me to be gone by now." The way Mostly Plus winces at his own words makes Eren's stomach wind tight in irritation at how he went ahead and made these speculations and got hurt by them without so much asking for Eren's input. But before he can open his mouth to deny all of the above, Mostly Plus is already pushing on: "I want to see you again, though. Since I think you're, you know, cool. So I'll give you my number and you can call me later. Yeah."

 _Smooth talker_ , Eren thinks with an inward snort, relaxing into a small smile. He can't help finding the way Mostly Plus fidgets with the barbell on his right ear maddeningly endearing, and _I want to see you again_ is really quite a sweet thing to say, like they went on a pleasant little dinner date or something.

Mostly Plus seems have misinterpreted Eren's slightly enamored stupor, though, because next thing Eren knows, he is pulling back the duvet and reaching for his underwear, mumbling, "Or not, that's cool too. I am one hundred percent okay with that. I've got somewhere to be in a bit and I've gotta get a change of clothes since your shitty booze smell rubbed off on me so—"

"No," Eren croaks past his sore throat. His fingers latch tight onto the forearm of Mostly Plus's non-underwear-holding hand, which tenses under his touch. "Pass me my phone."

Eren catches Mostly Plus sneaking a quick glance at his face before twisting out of his hold and digging for Eren's phone from the pile of clothes on the floor. Wordlessly, he hands it over.

"And, uh, you can borrow some of my stuff if you want. Because, you know." Eren waves in the general direction of his dresser.

Mostly Plus shoots him a slightly disgusted look at first but, upon reinspection of the stiff-looking front of his own underpants, nods his thanks. When he turns toward the dresser, Eren tries hard not to ogle too appreciatively at the strawberry field of bite marks blooming pink on his shoulders and the thin tracks of scratches running red across his sharp shoulder blades.

"Three-two-three," Mostly Plus begins to recite, and Eren fumbles to pull up the new contact screen, ignoring his twelve unread texts and three missed calls. He's glad that Mikasa is out of town right now and thus blissfully unaware of the situation; otherwise, he would have at least four times as many worried messages and an angry beating-down of his door. Still, he bets at least five out of the twelve are texts are Mikasa asking about his audition.

Lost in his own thoughts, Eren doesn't realize until after he finishes entering the ten-digit number that he should have let Mostly Plus punch it in himself. It _would have been_ the perfect way to get his name, but now it's too late. Blankly, Eren leaves his thumb hovering over the touchscreen. He stares dazedly at Mostly Plus as he finishes dressing. He's got a nice back, with long strips of muscle shifting beneath pale skin as he tugs a dark t-shirt down over his head. Eren probably won't ever be seeing that back again. And it's a pity, he thinks, squeezing his eyes shut, because god forbid this guy is actually a pretty decent person and Eren is destroying the fragile beginnings of whatever they had between them.

"You all right?" Mostly Plus's face is very close to his again when Eren opens his eyes.

"I'm so sorry," Eren says all in a rush. "I'm just—I—"

Mostly Plus glances, puzzled, between Eren's face and the phone lying loosely in his palm. His eyes catch on the cursor blinking next to "Name." It takes a moment, but through a terrible time-lapse evolution his expression stiffens. He pulls back from Eren to study his face. "You're kidding me, right?"

Eren bites his lip. His mind is spinning, and he feels sick not only from his hangover but from how much of a mess-up everything is, how much of a mess-up _he_ is—for fucking up the audition he waited three years for; for letting Reiner take him out to drink his woes away, against Armin's well-advised attempts to stop them; for making someone who cared enough to make sure he got water and didn't vomit all over himself wear _that_ look on his face.

"Are you leaving now?" Eren asks quietly.

"What, am I supposed to stay and grovel at your feet?" Mostly Plus's scowl deepens as he tries to pull his right shoe on his left foot. Realizing his mistake, he throws the shoe back onto the floor. "Fuck. I should have trusted my first impression of you, always spouting all that hot-headed nonsense in interviews like you're actually trying to _be_ those dumbass teen protagonists you always play. But you care no more than the rest of them about other people's feelings, do you, be honest now. Can't believe I tried to give you a chance and fell for your shit, _Eren Jaeger_." 

He spits Eren's name like it dirties his mouth. Heat sinks its claws into Eren's throat and face, leaving him raw and stinging all over.

"What do you mean?" Eren protests, crawling up onto his knees defensively. "You calling me a fake?"

"I'm saying that you're no different from all the other famous people you keep trying to set yourself apart from. And if that make you a fake..." Giant Fucking Fuckface says before reaching for the door.

"Wait!" Eren calls after him, tearing out of bed and stumbling as he tries to run and put on his underwear at the same time. "Don't think you can just say what you want and walk out!"

Fuckface has enough of a head start to make it down to the landing of the stairs before Eren sprints after him and leaps down five stairs in an almost successful tackle. He manages to get Fuckface by his ankles, clawing him down until he has him locked in a sideways straddle

"Ow, Jesus, what's the matter with you?" Fuckface shouts, finally raising his voice.

Eren rejoices over that small victory for a few moments before realizing that he doesn't actually know what to do next. He wants an apology, sure, but he gets the feeling that those sentiments voiced in his bedroom were sincere and this guy doesn't seem like the type to offer half-hearted apologies about things he means, given his disdain for ingenuity. And then there is actually proving that he isn't an insensitive, selfish bastard despite the whole name thing but this guy is probably going to leave _anyway_ so what is even the point? Why does Eren even care so much about what someone he met just yesterday thinks of him anyway? People have certainly written worse about him on the Internet.

Eren's loss of purpose for half-straddling Fuckface is the reason that when Carla pokes her head out from the kitchen, she catches them with their limbs tangled in a mess, clothes hanging half-off their bodies, both breathing hard. She takes in the situation with calm incongruous with the circumstance. 

"You're going to catch a cold like that, Eren," she says, wiping her hands on her apron. "Go get dressed and come back down for lunch. You boys must be starving."

"Mom—" Eren feels all the blood drain from his face, drawing as far back from Fuckface as possible in a split second. "I thought you were—weren't you—"

"Go," Carla repeats.

Eren feels his spine go limp like a marionette at her tone. He begins to drag his feet towards the stairs, pointedly ignoring the small, mortified noises Fuckface makes and the way he's glaring holes into Eren's back. Serves him right. He should just sit there in puddle of humiliation and reflect on his own assholery.

When Eren makes his way back downstairs, though, Eren finds Fuckface sitting with his mother at the breakfast table, munching on chili stew and French bread, looking a tad confused and overwhelmed but not uncomfortable enough to leave apparently. Carla stands up as Eren approaches, patting the chair she vacated.

"I'm bringing some of this food over to Mikasa's. We can talk next time you're over." She gives Fuckface a much kinder smile than she throws Eren's direction. "Rinse your dishes and leave them in the sink when you're done, yes?"

Once the front door clicks shut, Eren gets in the face he can't believe he once found attractive. Now it just looks offensive and grumpy. And long. "What did you say to my mom?"

Fuckface grimaces and keeps eating. When he swallows the mouthful of bread he's been masticating in that giant cave of his, he says, at last, "You're real a jerk." Figuring that this is a continuation of their earlier argument, Eren opens his mouth to contradict this but: "I can't believe we had really loud sex with your mom under the same roof. You could have had the decency to tell me that you live with your mother."

Fuckface uses the time Eren spends sputtering to make an exaggerated motion of reconsidering his last sentence. "Well, the one being loud and disruptive was mostly just you, but."

Eren groans into a fist. He wouldn't be surprised if there was steam coming from his ears right now. The possibility of his mother hearing him in the throes of dick-riding pleasure is a very pressing concern he had neglected thus far. But she said she was having girls' night with Mikasa's mom! Eren wouldn't have brought home a romp-buddy if he knew either! 

"Did she say anything to you?" he presses.

"Just invited me to lunch." Fuckface narrows his eyes at Eren. "Is that a courtesy she extends to all of your nameless one-night-stands? Or is this compensation for getting fly-tackled by her son."

"I don't know," Eren says tightly. "I've never done it before."

"Fly-tackling?" 

"One night stands," Eren corrects. He looks away. "I'm not that type of person." Fuckface doesn't even deserve to know this but Eren just wants to set the record straight, feels that it is somehow important for Fuckface to know that he doesn't pick up any hot stranger off the street, that this was supposed to be somehow special.

"Could have fooled me."

Oh, how special of an experience this is certainly turning out to be. So special Eren can't wait to opt out of it in point sixty-six seconds flat.

But before that: "You wanna just tell me what your name is? If it's so important to you."

"Why don't you ask your neighbors?" Fuckface suggests, lips twisting rudely into the love-child between a scowl and smirk. "I'm sure everyone heard it loud and cl—"

"Get OUT." Eren shoves Fuckface emphatically out of his chair. The only reason he doesn't go at him with a right hook is because there is still the chance that this son of a bitch might go to the press with this story and Eren would rather not come out the closet and be charged with battery all in one shot.

"Gladly," Fuckface says when he rights himself. 

Eren watches him take his plate with him to the sink and turn on the tap just long enough for a rinse, doing precisely as Carla had instructed. He moves with such slow deliberation that the blood pumping in Eren's ears is reconsidering that punch. 

He somehow manages to restrain himself the entire way to the foyer, until Fuckface pauses at the threshold because of course, _of course_ he can't leave with any bit of grace.

"Oh, and _Eren_?" Fuckface turns with one foot out the door. "I hope you did fuck up your audition as badly as you thought because I'm going to nail mine, and I'm not spending the next three months pretending to be your friend. Even if it's in the script."

Eren blinks, hard. "What. Wait--what. You're fucking with me. You're an actor? What role are you auditioning for?"

The fucker has the nerve to laugh, haughtiness and conceit smeared thick across his lips. "Guess you'll find out when you see me in theaters." Then he lets the door click shut politely behind him, and Eren sees fire behind his eyes.

He has enough dignity not to rip the door back open and shout colorful words down the driveway, but not enough calm and sense to stop himself from slamming his fist into the mahogany.

He is scrubbing the mistake of the century off his skin in the shower when the first concrete memories of the previous night begin trickling in. More specifically, his fingers brush against the slightly swollen rim of his asshole, and this jolts the memory of a gentler brush of fingers longer and more calloused than his own ghosting over the same spot.

_You all right?_

The fingers bring a tissue now, dabbing carefully at the sheen of lube and sweat on oversensitive skin. Eren's leg flinches involuntarily, even now.

Oh, his mind is playing the tape in reverse, Eren realizes when the mess of tissues disappear in the next scene where memory-Eren moans around the head of a hard length that he clumsily but all-too-enthusiastically tries to swallow around, which explains a lot about his achy throat this morning.

Or maybe a better explanation is the amount of unintelligible cursing he hears playing back next as memory-Eren grinds up and down against a hot, naked body. In the undercurrent of memory-Eren's demands for _harder fuck yes there dammit don't stop_ , a softer but dirtier growl is making the hairs on his ears stand, whispering sweet nothings in a hush, like the words are a secret between the two of them.

_Fucking hell Eren you're gorgeous, so hot and tight, can't believe this is happening, you're so good Eren, please Eren, just be like this, so fucking sweet and pretty—_

And everything from there on blends into such horrible convolution and chaos that Eren doesn't know anything of what is going on anymore except for that the choked sound memory-Eren makes is fucking embarrassing, all wrecked and spent but still desperate for more more _more_ of the man he clutches to so hard he leaves angry-red marks on every inch of skin he touches as he throws back his head now, releasing a guttural, animalistic cry of—oh.

_Jean._

Memory-Jean looks so lost in him. Current-Eren just feels lost and a bit like crying. 

In hindsight, Eren finds that he makes a lot of bad decisions. Fighting an mahogany door with his bare fist for one. Jumping into a hot shower with a bruised fist for another. For these bad decisions, he fully and sincerely blames one Jean Kirschtein. However, he does take responsibility for not just _saving Jean's number and pretending like everything was cool_. due to lack of critical thinking abilities while hungover.

When Carla returns, he is nursing his right hand in a bowl of ice on the kitchen counter, and "You let him leave?" is the first thing she says.

"I'm injured," Eren points out dramatically.

"What's wrong with your hand?" Carla frowns, then her eyes widen. "Did you hit him? Eren!"

"I wish," Eren mumbles and when Carla approaches him warningly, he adds quickly, "But I didn't! I punched the door."

He doesn't even have to look to see the "Oh, Eren" face she makes at him whenever she thinks her kid is being kind of pathetic. This time she actually voices the "Oh, Eren" and he throws up both his hands in defeat, rolling his eyes.

"I thought you liked him," she says.

Eren blanches. "Where'd you get that?"

Carla pauses, as if forcing herself to skip over a number of more obvious answers. Eren thinks back to what Jean said about having really loud sex with his mother under the same roof. This would be a good time for the ground to open up.

"Well, you've never brought anyone home other than Mikasa and Armin, never mind let them stay over in your room," Carla says at last. "And I don't want a petty fight ruining something important for you."

Eren bites down hard on his lower lip. "Way to make him sound like my soulmate or something. We spent, like, twelve hours together, at most."

She tilts her head. The wrinkles on her forehead relax and regroup around her eyes. She sighs, a little wistful, a little sad. He flicks at an ice chip. 

He knows what she wants to say without her saying it; they've lived on their own long enough to read the lines on each other's faces. The thing about people, they both know, is that sometimes they can come together in a brilliant moment of fate and fit in all the right ways from the beginning and remain every bit as in love in their last days as their first; or, they can spend ten years trying to patch things up through compromise and playing pretend, only to have one of them walk out with no warning, leaving the other with a broken heart and a child who learns of abandonment and betrayal too young.

"Go get some rest, Eren," Carla says, when she speaks at last. "You've had a tough week."

Eren takes her advice without debate for once. After a week of skimping out on sleep in favor of preparing for the audition that now seems hopeless, he now feels his exhaustion like a physical weight pressing down on his body, threatening to reach for his soul. His bed sheets are still stained and disgusting, so he curls himself up on the couch in the living room instead.

Teetering on the edge of consciousness a while later, he feels his mother cup his left cheek and press a kiss to his right, wrapping him up like a small child in gentle words and soft blankets. She pets his hair and he lets her, faking sleep.

Eren never regrets taking the path he did because for one, he genuinely enjoys acting and takes pride in his work. His job is also the sole reason they can afford to live in a nice house and his mother can enjoy the rest her weak constitution needs. That is why only in the darkest crevice of night, in the safety of his own mind, in the softest breaths of words will he admit to missing the childhood he has portrayed but never lived.

He wonders, briefly, if you can truly miss what you never had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eren pretty much takes the cake at being an unreliable narrator even when sober, so hopefully the next chapter will help clear up some things here. Thanks for reading!
> 
> (minor edits made on 4/16/14)


	2. in words that are not your own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wild prince Armin appears. Levi and Erwin are definitely in this just to watch awkward teenagers squirm uncomfortably. Jean's POV.

"You're kidding me, right?"

For a moment, Jean is immobilized by the shame that has been lurking in the back of his mind ever since he came down from his hormone-fueled high. 

Heartbeats after Eren slid off his body and everything they'd done together flashed through his mind, Jean had found himself on the verge of bolting, just scooping up his clothes and escaping through the nearest door or window in hopes that this pretty, bright-eyed boy who tripped into his arms and asked to forget the bad in the world together will not remember a single thing about what they did. But the hand around his wrist stopped him.

Eren's grip was loose, barely-there, certainly not enough to physically stop Jean from leaving. Jean didn't move an inch from where he sat on the edge of the bed, though, because Eren was staring up at him drowsily and pressing wet, sloppy kisses all over Jean's hand like an over-affectionate puppy, only stopping to whine, "My ass feels gross."

It would be polite to help clean Eren up, Jean told himself, especially since it had been implicitly requested of him. And if Jean was going to overstay the term of his visit, he might as well also tuck Eren into his blankets properly, to be polite. And the _polite_ thing to do when Eren whispered, "I'll make it up to you with breakfast" was to nod and let Eren spoon up against him. Probably.

He stayed because he needed to make sure Eren didn't die of dehydration the next morning. He stayed because he occasionally tries to be a gentleman. He may have also stayed because a voice in his mind had assured him that even if the world turned from him in shame, at least _this one person_ would remain his ally.

Well, the sick jackass that that voice belongs to has obviously seen one French film too many because his supposed _ally_ will not even meet his eyes now. 

His wish of Eren forgetting all about him has been granted just too perfectly, Jean thinks bitterly as frustration over the situation and his inability to put on his own shoes build inside him. This whole wish thing isn't even fair because Jean is sure he made about seventy more wishes for Eren to stay just as gorgeous and fond of Jean's presence when morning comes, and what happened to those?

His boot hits the floor with a loud crack when he throws it down in defeat.

The words that come out of his mouth next don't feel like his own. He knows his words leaves people with papercuts on their skin sometimes, but he only says them because he is honest. What he isn't is an asshole out to stab people to their core and twist the knife. 

Maybe he had just wanted to make Eren look at him, properly, but when Eren's eyes do meet his, they are alight with anger and hurt, and that is not what Jean had intended. His heart sinks, heavy with mercury, feeling like that kid who hurts his own knuckles more than the other person's face from the punch he throws. He turns for the door because if he cannot win in this, he can at least bow out like a mature young adult.

He is trying to find his way out of this castle only celebrities like Eren goddamn Jaeger can afford in this part of LA when he hears the sound of a raging elephant thundering down the stairs behind him. Before he can even turn, a pair of arms crash into the back of his thighs.

"Ow, Jesus, what's the matter with you?" Jean shouts in Eren's face.

Eren smirks at him as he struggles to sit himself on top of Jean's hips. He partly succeeds in this endeavor because Jean isn't putting up as much of a fight as he knows he can. There is still a small, small part of him that wants to hear what Eren has to say, that's waiting for Eren to explain. It is three times now that Eren has stopped him from walking out and that must mean _something_ , right? 

But Eren doesn't say anything right away, seeming more intent on keeping Jean down and messing up his clothes, so Jean starts fighting back for real—and that is about when a female, older version of Eren arrives at the scene. 

She doesn't bat an eye or offer any look of surprise.

"You're going to catch a cold that way, Eren," she says. "Go get dressed and come back down for lunch. You boys must be starving."

"Mom—" Eren begins.

A mortified fragment of Jean's soul attempts to escape alongside the last of his hopes that maybe Eren has an older sister who likes to drop by and cook him food from time to time because that would have been a much more preferable alternative to running into his one-night-stand's _actual mother_. Who probably knows what Jean sounds like during sex before she knows his name. If Jean didn't feel bad for his name before, he does now.

Jean glares with as much murderous intent as he can muster over his inner screeches of distress at Eren's back as he follows his mother's orders to put on some clothes. A soft touch to the top of his head pulls him out of an aggressive bout of self-pity. 

When Eren's mother frowns down at him, he prepares himself for the worst, but all she says is "Your hair needs a cut, dear."

 _Dear_ , she says. How long has it been since anyone has called him _dear_? 

"Come help set up the table," Eren's mom says, retreating into the kitchen.

"I—uh, need to be going..." Jean begins.

Eren's mom turns with a soft, serene expression that is far too pleasant for the way her eyes glimmer in warning. Jean can see where Eren gets his eyes now. "Oh, but won't you be a sweetie and give me a hand first? There was an awful lot of commotion last night, and I'm feeling a bit tired this morning."

Jean gulps, feeling his cheeks heat up. "Yes, ma'am."

Her smile loses its threat. "You can call me Carla."

"Um, I'm Jean," he says.

"So I've heard," she hums lightly.

Jean is about to ask _from whom?_ when he reminds himself—right. Eren. Screaming. Okay. A decent-sized piece of him dies inside.

"He's a bit of a handful, isn't he?" Carla says to the French bread she's taking out of the oven. "As I'm sure you've already realized."

"A handful" is a rather generous way of describing Eren, who seems to have undergone a complete personality change when he went from drunk to hungover to positively possessed. Jean thinks back to the boy who spent five hours rolling around in his lap, telling him his life story for no reason at all, stumbling with his words but pushing on nonetheless because he was so infused with passion, with life, with the rawest desire to find and fulfil _purpose_. He had been full of fire, but it is not the rage that burns in Eren's eyes now. It's partly Jean's fault for pushing his buttons, but he was the asshole first.

"Yeah, I've noticed," Jean decides to agree, for simplicity.

"He's worth it, though," Carla says, then laughs when she sees Jean's eyes widen in surprise. "Well, as his mother, I think so anyway."

"Uh, well." Jean swallows. "I'm—I'm not really. Like." Oh god. How is Jean going to get himself out of this one now that Eren's mother thinks they're dating and is trying to convince Jean to have faith in her dumb kid? 

Carla's gaze flickers over Jean's face as she continues, casual as ever, "Just for the record, he thinks you're worth it, too."

 _That's stupid_ is the knee-jerk reaction Jean has to that, but it is a bit rude, so he settles for the classic "excuse me?"

"He's a handful but he doesn't get that worked up over anyone." Carla shrugs, handing Jean the basket of bread and a bowl of hot stew. "That way." She tilts her head toward the next room over.

Dumbly, Jean obeys, at a loss. He sets the food down on the breakfast table and sits when Carla gestures at the chair. The steam from the bowl beneath her chin wraps its fingers around her cheeks. She mimics the gesture around Jean's cheek, and he has half a mind to flinch away, but the touch feels oddly comforting.

"Don't make it too hard on yourselves," she says, before her hand trails away.

Jean thinks he shouldn't let this woman who knows nothing about him tell him what to do. Watching Eren slip on a stair on the way down, Jean also thinks that if he and Eren would only stop being assholes to each other for a moment, they could once again become the people who clashed against but complemented each other so beautifully last night. 

Alternatively, he could just eat his food, flip Eren off, and leave. That would probably be the safe and sane choice.

And more or less, that's what happens.

Jean kicks rocks for an entire half-mile before flagging down a taxi.

As a result, he arrives at his audition just ten minutes before his appointment. Luckily, he'd had the good sense to lay out a change of clothes—dark jeans with a maroon sweater pulled over a white button-up—the day before. 

The auditions take place in a brick office building. A receptionist leads him through a maze of hallways to a waiting area. One guy walks out from the office at the end of the hall, stiff and zombie-like, and another is sitting with his head in his hands. Jean feels like he's being sent off to war.

It does fit quite well with the mood of the film, he must admit. Though the characters employ no guns or knives, the weapon of choice is much more deadly: a virus called Titan which allows for mind control of infected individual via accelerated software aging of the system giving identity to every individual on Earth. The story features teen protagonists Lux and Logan, both of whom have lost their families to the virus and are now setting out to destroy their hideously cruel world in vengeance. To be more accurate, it is Lux who wants to destroy the world. Logan just doesn't have the power to stop his best friend, yet.

Here enters Damon, a twenty-three-year-old joe who joined the Survey Corps knowing that they get the big bucks for sitting around, writing temporary scripts to patch new loopholes in the Walls. The organization was created to spearhead counterattacks on the Titans, but they haven't been granted the power or machinery to do so by the government in decades. The advent of Logan and Lux's threat to humanity robs Damon of all the safeties he has been privilege to, and he tries his best to hate Lux and Logan, he does, but the closer he comes into contact with them, the harder he finds it to truly fault them for their actions. They are young and afraid and unsure of the consequences of their decisions in the same way he is, and though Damon does not agree with their means, he understands that their actions will jumpstart the attack on the Titans that humankind desperately needs.

The scene for this audition begins right after Damon convinces Lux to disable the program that would wipe all the system memory within the Walls. He had risked the integrity of his own identity chip and seen all his memories flicker across Lux's machine before Logan frantically performed an emergency restore.

The three of them collapse under the weight of their guilt, their genius, and the remnants of their humanity.

"Jean Kirschtein?" a woman holding a clipboard calls. "Director Smith is ready for you."

Jean stands. Takes a deep breath. For the sake of humanity, huh. 

"Okay."

Jean isn't shy or easily nervous in front of strangers. He wouldn't be in performance if he was. Nevertheless, he finds the atmosphere in this room absolutely suffocating.

Next to Director Smith, who introduces himself as Erwin, sits a raven-haired man whom Jean immediately recognizes as the legendary, never-aging veteran of the silver screen; a man who goes only by the name Levi. Jean isn't sure why Levi is here other than to intimidate the shit out of the auditionees with his dagger-sharp eyes. 

Levi simply nods at him.

The fourth person in the room, a blonde prettyboy with blue eyes, stands forward with the offer of a handshake. For all the delicacy of his features, the grip of his hand is firm around Jean's. "I'm Armin Arlert, playing the role of Lux," he says. "Erwin invited me to participate in the audition with the hope that we can build on each other's performance and help you give a better audition."

Jean realizes right away that this essentially means that his audition will be decided in large upon how well he can act with Armin. There is a third person in the scene, but given that Eren's audition was only yesterday, there is no one here to play Logan. Eren and Jean's chances of being cast will also probably depend on whether or not Erwin thinks they might have chemistry together, a frightening consideration.

Right now, though, there is nothing more Jean can do than to pull his own weight and pray that he ends this scene flying.

"If you have no further questions, you may begin whenever you're ready," Erwin says after letting Armin explain a few logistics of the audition.

"All right," Jean says. He exchanges looks with Armin, who nods and walks over to the place marked X with orange tape, seating himself at the cross.

Jean knows his character is meant to feel comforted lying against the knee Armin props up for him, but his body is stiff at the joints, refusing to relinquish its weight onto Armin thigh.

"That kid's the one who passed your paper interview." Levi's voice startles him. He speaks with slow apathy. "Don't pansy out and let him down."

When Jean looks up, Armin smiles at him encouragingly, a faint flush of pink across his cheekbones. "Logan's right in front of you," he bends down to whisper into Jean's ear in quiet, even tones. "You want nothing more than to hate him—hate both of us—for disturbing the peace in your safe, simple life. It would be easy to follow orders and just put us down, but you can't because you want to become someone who makes choices worthy of self-respect. Plus, Logan is the most passionate person you've ever met, and it pisses you off as much as it magnetizes you."

Jean breathes long through his nose. Armin had just recited that interpretation from Jean's paper interview in all of Jean's own words, but it sounds all different now that he can see no one but Eren as Logan. It is Eren's face floating at the tips of his fingers when he reaches for pretend-Logan's hand. It is to Eren he speaks when he begins the first line of his audition.

The word 'magnetic' suits Eren well, Jean thinks, as his mouth charges forth with the scene. There's something that draws people to Eren; that much is obvious from the frequency with which his face decorates the covers of gossip magazines, even when he's up to nothing more exciting than meeting Mikasa Ackerman for coffee.

But the thing about Eren's passion and magnetism is that when people congregate around him, he tries too hard and gives them too much of himself. Last night, for example, Eren had spilled his whole life to a total stranger whose only merit was not shoving him off his lap when he drunkenly landed himself there. With every word he spoke, it seemed like he was reaching into his heart and pulling out pieces of it to press into Jean's hand for safekeeping. Jean had never felt so entrusted with another person, never mind someone so beautiful and well-loved and captivating, and the rush of that feeling fucked with his mind, _bad_.

Jean doesn't like to think of himself as a feelings person, as it rubs his masculinity the wrong way; he doesn't believe in love at first sight, for it sounds shallow and rash. But he cannot deny that in the moment Eren sunk his body down around him and leaned in to press their lips together, pulling their torsos flesh against each other, he felt like everything was kind of in place for him. Like this was it. 

And the thought of teenage heartthrob Eren Jaeger being _it_ for him was too big and overwhelming of a thought to process at a time when more than 75% of his brain had migrated south for a sweltering hot winter.

He recalls rasping out Eren's name in a voice thin and unbalanced.

Eren dug his teeth into Jean's collarbone in response, panting in time with every roll of their hips.

" _Eren_." He remembers running a thumb along Eren's jawline, trying to get him to lift his head again. Eren didn't budge. "Goddammit, Eren, look at me. Stop playing cute. Please." Desperation was unbecoming, but Jean didn't even care. "Just. _Look at me_."

Don't leave me alone feeling dumb and wrapped up in you. Don't leave me alone in wanting more. Don't leave me alone.

"Don't," Jean croaks at the space before him, "leave me alone." Riding on a fresh wave of frustration, memory of the way Eren's eyes finally met his, dark and honest like nothing Jean has ever seen, hits him, and he feels tears he hadn't known were welling in his eyes reach a high-water point. 

It is the scene. He is crying because this is a goddamn powerful scene and he is a goddamn excellent actor. 

(Jean knows too well of his own lies, and he hates that at times like these.)

Around his shoulders, Armin's arms tighten protectively. "We're not going anywhere," he says shakily, barely above a hush. Jean thinks for a moment that Armin ought to speak up because his next line makes no sense without it, but when moisture seeps through his hair and Armin's voice breaks as he repeats his line, Jean realizes with a shiver that Armin can't project because his throat is too tight with emotion. And it's not even his audition.

"We have to move forward," Jean says. "And we need to do it together. Promise me, we're going to break free from these invisible walls, together."

"Yes," Armin affirms, swallowing hard. "Together, we can reclaim this world." 

Jean stretches a tired smile across his lips, and when his eyelids fall shut, Eren's stupid face is there again, young and alive and the symbol of hope. He would be perfect for Logan, to be honest. "And if it's not too late," he says, "we might even be able to reclaim ourselves."

End scene. They remain still, the room silent.

Erwin leans forward in his chair slowly, mindful of the fragility of the moment. He stands and extends a hand toward Jean, who takes it hesitantly, not sure if he is meant to shake it or let Erwin pull him up. 

Okay, both, he concludes as he rises by the easy strength of Erwin's arm. Erwin pulls Armin up the same way. Armin wipes at his eyes and says thank you.

"I applaud your performance, Jean Kirschtein," Erwin says to Jean, with a kind smile. "You'll hear back by next Friday, and I think it would serve you well to keep your schedule open."

Jean feels a grin break out across his face. "I'm looking forward to it."

"I'll show him the way out," Armin says.

Erwin nods at them before walking back towards Levi, where he leans down to let him whisper something into his ear. He puts a hand on Levi's arm when he whispers back.

Jean blinks a few times as they disappear behind the door swinging shut. The auditionees from before have left, the hallway stretching long and empty before them.

"Are those two...?" He raises an eyebrow at Armin. He has the impression that he's heard rumors to that effect before.

Armin levels a look at him. "Are you and Eren…?"

Jean stops abruptly in his tracks.

"I guess you didn't notice me at the party yesterday," Armin says, biting his cheek. "I mean, you did seem pretty preoccupied with Eren."

Jean frowns. "I'm thankful for what you did for me, but that doesn't give to the right to be privy to my life," he says, rougher than he intends. He might be a bit protective of what little he had with Eren, wanting to hoard it in the space of his mind and not have to share it with anyone else.

"I guess not," Armin admits. "But Eren's my best friend and he ran into you in a moment of vulnerability. He sometimes gets too attached."

All day, Jean feels like people have been telling him things about Eren that he could believe is true for the boy he met at Annie's birthday party, but not the one he... _exchanged words_ with this morning. He wonders what he's missing here.

"You sound like his mom," he grumbles.

Armin's raises his eyebrows. "You met Eren's mom?"

"She's very lovely," Jean sighs, pressing the heel of a hand into his eye.

"I know, yes," Armin is quick to agree.

"Look, there's nothing between that asshole and me, all right?" When Armin shoots Jean a dubious look, he twists his face into a scowl. "He didn't even remember me when he woke up this morning. I ran into his mom on the way down, got forced into an awkward lunch, and hightailed the hell out." 

Armin looks like he knows he is being fed a gross oversimplification of the story but seems to think better of pressing for more. He'll probably just ask Eren about it later anyway.

"Thanks for walking me out," Jean says, stopping in front of the main entrance.

"I'll see you soon, hopefully?" Armin's lips curve a bit uncertainly.

"Yeah, for sure, Armin."

He feels Armin's eyes trained on him as he walks through the glass doors. He waves goodbye without turning back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this concludes the super-long prologue portion of the story. shit will get real soon and maybe mikasa ackerman will return to town?
> 
> please feel free to leave comments/questions/corrections here or at memoit @ tumblr! thanks for reading. :)
> 
> (minor edits made on 4/16/14)


	3. until you sing me by heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two months later, an update! This one is dedicated to Sandra, whose enthusiasm pushed me to finish and post this chapter. <3

At some point, Eren makes his way to bed, cocooning himself in mostly-clean blankets after peeling back the soiled sheets. He considers texting Armin or Mikasa or taking his mother out to dinner to stop thoughts of Jean from crashing around inside his skull like a clumsy puppy on uppers, but the first two options involve touching the phone he doesn't want to remember owning, and he rules out the third option because he needs a few days to regain his dignity after the horrors of what he'd let her overhear.

So, he sleeps.

And maybe it is because he knocks out so early that for the first time since high school, he finds himself up in time for the news the next morning. Carla shoots him an alarmed look as he trips down the stairs. It's a Sunday.

"'Morning," he mutters, digging for the largest bowl they have, the one that looks like a wash bin. He fills it to the brim with 1:1 Lucky Charms:milk and sinks into the couch with it balanced on his thighs.

He's shoveling the first spoonful into his mouth when Armin appears on the screen. For a moment, he swears his death certificate will read "Cause of death: asphyxiation (rainbow marshmallows)" but he manages to cough the sugary mush back up in time. His eyes are huge and slightly watery as he stares incredulously at the screen.

"This morning, we have former child star Armin Arlert for the first time on television since his return from hiatus," the show host says in that suave, overenthusiastic host voice.

"Good morning," Armin says pleasantly.

Eren has an arm reaching for the home phone when he realizes that the show is live and Armin can't be shaking the host's hand, blond locks falling dreamily into his eyes, and answer to Eren's sputtering demands about _how_ and _why_ and _didn't you decide to stay on the down-low until the_ Attack on Titan _press conference._

With great impatience, Eren sits through the whole fifteen-minute interview and even gives Armin an entire minute and a half to return to the dressing room before ringing in.

Armin picks up on the third frustrating call, sounding concerned. "Hey Eren, what are you doing up at this hour? I just got off—"

"I know," Eren says. "I was watching."

"Oh?" Armin intones, surprised. "Did you...need to send in viewer's comments?"

"Yes!" Eren says, maybe a bit too forcefully. He clears his throat and tries again. "Yeah. Why didn't you tell me about this?"

He can almost hear a shrug in the silence. "You were busy prepping for the audition when I received the offer for the interview. It's not that big of a deal, just a morning show."

" _Not a big deal_?" Eren echoes, letting the words speak for themselves.

After another shrug-like pause, Armin says, distractedly, "I've got to run, Eren. Still picking up Mikasa at 10, right?"

Eren grunts, sighing resignedly. "Yeah. I'll come get you."

He spends the greater part of the next ten minutes squinting at the phone after he replaces it on the cradle, thinking about how the media is going to _blow their shit_.

He hopes that they will at least hold off until 10.

 

 

Flashes go off as Mikasa ducks into Eren's car. Eren doesn't even know how they find out, but they always do. Today, there's twice the usual entourage, a good number of them there for Armin.

Eren thinks he hears girls shouting, " _Prince_!!!"

"Incredible," he says, trying to rub color into his eyes before pulling the car out of park and doing his best not to drive straight through the wall of people with their cameras and smartphones aimed at them. Through tinted windows.

"You two are probably going to be dating again in a couple of hours," Armin muses.

"Maybe they'll write you in this time," Eren says. "Nothing spices things up like a hearty threesome."

In his peripheral vision, Eren sees Armin lurch forward from the backseat. "Eren!"

As he turns out of the parking garage, Eren peers over his shoulder and catches the disapproving set of Armin's mouth, the way his cheeks puff out a little like an irate hamster. He smiles to himself. "We might get kicked out of the agency for that one, though."

"You don't always have to come pick me up." Mikasa slides a sideways look at Eren and Armin.

"Nile says it diverts attention from your bandmates eating each other's faces," Eren says. "You shouldn't have to brave that on your own." Whether he's talking about the paps and fans, or watching Ymir sucking the life force out of Historia, he's not even sure himself.

Mikasa makes a noncommittal sound. "You doing all right?"

Eren pauses for a second, biting back the _yeah sure_ on his tongue. He doesn't need to pull the "strong and independent twenty-year-old male with a mostly-solid standing in the film industry who does not need long-faced assholes or the _Attack on Titan_ movie in his life" shit with Mikasa and Armin, but he doesn't really want to discuss his recent failures as an actor and general human being, either.

"I've been better," he admits.

Mikasa nods, turning to face him, as Armin leans forward on his elbows. "I'm sorry your audition didn't go well. I heard from Armin."

"I guess I'm mostly upset that we won't be able to act together," Eren says, taking the next turn too sharp. "I mean, it's the first time we've all auditioned for the same project and it just--kinda sucks feeling left out." He's trying not to sound too bitter about it, but he doesn't think it worked. He feigns a wistful look into the blue glory of the morning sky. "Also. My golden opportunity to get kicked in the face by Levi..."

Eren can feel the eyeroll in Armin's words without looking back at him. "I worry you'll start resorting to drastic means of idol worship if you don't get cast in _something_ with him soon."

"I'm a self-respecting fan," Eren insists. He's trying to push out of mind the closet full of posters and limited-edition DVDs and keychains he's been secretly collecting for years. "But hey, who knows, I might still have a chance."

He sees Mikasa purse her lips out of the corner of his eyes.

"Worst case scenario: I take secret pictures of him falling asleep on set for you," she offers jokingly.

Probably jokingly.

"Please, I'm not desperate," Eren says.

He's pretty offended by the doubtful silence that follows.

 

 

Despite having just landed in LA, Mikasa has work queued up for the afternoon: a radio show that's been vying for her to guest since last November and, before that, a photoshoot that she would rather eat glass than attend.

As they pull up against the curb in front of the studio building, Mikasa twists to unbuckle herself, bending down to dig out her wallet and phone from the travel bag at her feet. She frowns down at the items in her hands.

"You never did answer my messages, did you," she says.

Eren rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "Sorry, haven't been checking my phone."

"Why?" she asks, concern coloring the question.

 _Because that would involve confronting a certain half-filled contact page and that weird twisting feeling in my stomach I can't explain_ , he doesn't say, slumping into his seat a little. He slips a glance at Armin who's staring at him quietly, with the same odd expression he wore this morning when Eren picked him up, like he's gauging the right time to voice something he desperately wants to say.

"Don't you need to be at your shoot?" Eren squints at the vaguely Nile-like figure glaring at them from behind the double doors of the studio.

"They're going to stuff me in a mini. I don't want to go."

"Come on, go," Eren says, nudging at her arm. "The shoot is your job; mothering me isn't."

"But…" Mikasa's eyes scour Eren's face several times over.

"It's fine," he insists.

She wavers for a moment before reaching to push the door open. "Talk to Armin if you need to, yeah? And call me any time."

"I'm not _dying_ ," Eren says.

She leaves him another uncertain look before hopping onto the curb and slamming the door behind her.

Eren's eyes are still roaming dazedly beyond the window, thoughts wading in half-formed sentiments, when he hears Armin sliding forward, one knee balanced against the center console and arms pulling Eren in against the soft cashmere of his sweater.

"You don't have to talk if you don't want to," Armin says softly into Eren's hair. Eren winds his own arms around Armin's waist, tucking his face into the curve of his shoulder. Armin is warm and gentle all over despite how bony he is, a calm heat radiating from his skin that never fails to soothe, even on the worst of days.

"But I should admit," Armin continues, slowly, "that I already know the gist of what's going on."

For a moment, Eren stiffens as a mess of panicked questions rumble-jumble through his mind before realizing, oh, Armin was at the party, too. And he'd gone with the intention of making sure Eren didn't throw himself off the balcony in a drunken stupor, so he'd probably watched the whole affair play out until Eren and Jean left together.

Not that Armin hasn't seen worse from him but--"I bet I was embarrassing."

Armin hums thoughtfully, his chest buzzing with it. "Can't deny that, sorry. It was kind of cute, if that helps."

"Thanks," Eren says dryly. "You mean cute in a dumb pony-on-a-carrot-chase way."

Armin peers down at Eren, eyebrows raised. "But you got the carrot, right? Took it home with you?"

Eren makes a choked sound in the back of his throat and shoves at Armin's chest even as he feels laughter bubble in his throat. " _No_ ," he says. "I mean, _yes_ but _no_ you don't get to make dick jokes like that. Oh my god, what did college do to you."

"Hope it wasn't a baby carrot. I know how you hate those," Armin says breezily, the voice of nonchalance. Except, his eyes are positively _flashing_ with glee. The little fucker.

Eren cups both hands around Armin's cheeks and schools his features into one of mock-solemnity. "We didn't send you to higher education for this, son."

In turn, Armin grips Eren's shoulders and shakes his head, expression equally grave. "I think you did, father. After all, I have been informed on the ways of the world."

"Your father would have a fucking aneurysm," Eren says, dropping the act with a light pinch to Armin's cheeks, "if he heard you making sexual innuendos about my one-night-stand. Or at all, actually."

"You're not seeing him again?"

"He's an asshole," Eren says.

"It looked like he was pretty nice about taking care of you at the party…" Armin trails off before picking up again. "I mean, considering you just made yourself at home in his lap out of the blue."

"He probably just wanted to get laid, I don't know!" Eren slumps inward defensively, shoving his hands in his pockets. When he rams his forefinger straight into the side of his phone, he winces not only in pain, but also because he knows what he says isn't quite fair. If Jean had been in it for a quick fuck, he wouldn't have been so nice about cleaning Eren up, wouldn't have stayed until the morning to make sure Eren was okay, certainly wouldn't have tried to give Eren his number.

Armin tilts his head at the contrite way Eren sucks in his cheeks. "He seemed upset that you didn't remember him the morning after."

"Wait--" Eren shakes his head because Armin has been springing way too many surprise on him today. "He-- _you know him_?"

"Not personally," Armin says. "They did open auditions for a couple of the characters, and Erwin asked my opinion on some things. I read Jean's audition with him yesterday."

"You--what--you--" Whoa. No. What? Jean really-- Okay. Taking a step back. "What character?" he asks as a sense of foreboding stirs at his core.

"Damon."

Of course. Of _course_. Why _wouldn't_ Jean go for Damon? The one character Eren had spent days obsessing over when he read the light novels on which the film is based because he couldn't figure out whether to feel aggravated over his pessimism and forced steadiness or to admire his dedication to eliminating unnecessary sacrifice of lives.

It just figures that both Jean and the character he goes for would confuse the fuck out of Eren.

"Is Director Smith going to pass him?" he asks.

"He was good, Eren. You can't forget him once you've seen him," Armin says, with stress on all the wrong words, "and the film needs that."

Eren bites his lip, running a finger along the side of his phone.

 _You can't forget him once you've seen him_.

If that is true, then how is Eren supposed to forget him after touching him and kissing him and feeling his heart kick against his skin? After knowing the caress of Jean's tongue against his mouth and the fit of his name around Jean's lips and the texture of Jean's fingertips as he traced every stretch of Eren's body like a cartographer learning the earth.

Eren stares out at the empty sidewalk, stretching like a ladder toward heights unknown. Most days, the hustle and bustle of work and social obligations and Armin and Mikasa keep him too preoccupied to wallow in fears and worries and things that he knows will only slow him down. But some days, when the lights shine too brightly upon his face, he wonders who he would be without the name Eren Jaeger attached to his person, if he would end up in some corner of the world, lost and forgotten.

The funny thing with being famous is that people take knowing you for granted. They pick up fleeting facts about you on the cover of magazines, overhear gossip about you in school, lend half an ear to a news report about your latest movie. But how many of them would take time out of their day to commit you to memory? How many would take in your inebriated rambles like they are words of consequence, bury their nose deep in your hair as if preparing themselves to find their way back to you by sense of scent alone if need be?

The more Eren recalls about the time he spent with Jean, the heavier his stomach grows with guilt over how _wanted_ and appreciated Jean's attentiveness had made him feel that night at and after the party, and how dispensable he must have made Jean feel in return the next morning.

The screen of his phone may actually combust under the friction of his fingers if he worries his hand against it any more. He takes it out of his pocket and unlocks the screen.

"Are you going to text him?" Armin asks.

"What should I say?"

"You should apologize," Armin says.

"But that's so…" Eren scrunches his nose. "He said some pretty rude things to me too."

"Someone's got to be the bigger person."

And it's going to have to be the one who cares more. Eren hopes Jean still cares _at all_. But still. An apology seems a bit heavy-handed and likely to end on a _whatever, just delete my number_ note.

He types out the first thing that comes to mind and hits send before he can change his mind. After one minute, the backlight fades. The distinct thump-ba-dump of his heart pounding in his ears doesn't. All he's done is send a six-word text to a boy, but the adrenaline in his veins makes him feel like he's flying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments/corrections are welcome here or at memoit @ tumblr. Thanks for reading!


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